


teach my feet to fly (I made my baby cry)

by orphan_account



Category: Larry Stylinson - Fandom, One Direction (Band)
Genre: Christmas, DECFANFIC, Fluff and Angst, I can't even write a happy fic for, I promise, I'm Sorry, Ice Skating, M/M, but there is a happy ending, mostly angst, whoops
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-01
Updated: 2014-12-01
Packaged: 2018-02-27 12:49:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2693618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes a simple apology isn't enough. But then, sometimes it is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	teach my feet to fly (I made my baby cry)

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by "River." The version that I have on replay now is track 3 from Sarah McLachlan's Christmas album, Wintersong. The tune's original composer and performer, though, is the exceptional Joni Mitchell. Credit for italicized lyrics goes to her.

_It’s comin’ on Christmas, they’re cuttin’ down trees_

_They’re puttin’ up reindeer, singin’ songs of joy and peace_

_Oh, I wish I had a river I could skate away on_

It wasn’t entirely horrendous, what Louis did. Not really. He and Harry, they’d been together for a solid fifteen months, and it didn’t seem probable something so minor could’ve come between them. Yes, it was Louis’ fault. And, yeah, he felt lower than a dachshund's ballsac about it, okay? That didn’t mean his boyfriend had needed to leave their Hollywood villa, let alone the fucking country.

Was Louis angry? Frustrated, too. Sad... No, not merely sad. Bloody morose. His entire reason for happiness anymore was Harry. He'd not experienced true joy before knowing the ebullient lad, and Louis felt that he'd only just begun to learn the value of commitment over being footloose, of love over lust.

Then Harry—dearest friend and flatmate—had slipped away or, rather, been driven away by Louis' own wretched pride. It stung like a sodding colony of wasps. And he was allergic, to boot.

❄❄❄

_But it don’t snow here, it stays pretty green_

_I’m gonna make a lot of money, and then I’m gonna quit this crazy scene_

_Oh, I wish I had a river I could skate away on_

Louis wouldn’t say California was the ideal place to celebrate the winter holidays. His job in the entertainment industry kept him there, and it paid handsomely, but that had never quite eased the sting of being on the wrong side of the globe at a time of year most people gathered ‘round a warm hearth with their family of origin. Then there was the lack of frost and other traditional scenery. Somehow, inflatable snowmen lit from inside didn’t look half realistic in his neighbour’s verdant garden.

Having Harry to jingle his bells, so to speak, certainly made Christmas on the West Coast more desirable. Or it had last year, at any rate. Reveling in newfound domesticity, they’d baked gingerbread men, then improved their anatomical correctness and embellished them with rather more white icing than necessary. That was only the beginning of their shared festivities.

Later there was a parade Harry helped him crash, by way of dazzling several elderly women on a church float with his repertoire of North Pole puns. He didn’t even censor them, the imp! And he had forced Louis into sampling a different wine each day of December. _What else do rich blokes have wine cellars for, if not to drain them regularly of their contents?_ That was his so-called logic, anyway, but it did make for some fun times. Night after balmy winter night, he and his tipsy paramour had snuggled and/or shagged before the fireplace. Well, a faux version of one with an elegant tile surround that Louis’ decorator insisted upon. Harry's taste was superior, though... The memory of those red silk panties trimmed in white mink (synthetic, of course) still had a position of honour in Louis’ spank bank.

Now, on his upcoming Christmas Eve birthday, Louis would be going home alone to a cat he wasn’t sure he liked and an empty—albeit stylishly expensive—fridge. Perhaps an e-card from his mum, if he was lucky.

That pretty much summed up the whole scenario, didn’t it? He’d **been** lucky, and tossed his good fortune away like so much rubbish.

❄❄❄

_I wish I had a river so long, I would teach my feet to fly_

_Oh, I wish I had a river I could skate away on_

_I made my baby cry_

Watching Harry blubber helplessly was worse than—well, Louis could’ve listed a few hundred items, at the time, if he hadn’t been trying so hard to calm him down. The thing was, after he found out about Louis’, erm, indiscretion, Louis spent an hour rocking Harry on his lap and petting his hair. Then several more worrying what would happen to Harry physically if he couldn’t stop weeping.

Turned out Louis should’ve worried what he’d do himself, when he woke up to a Dear John letter anchored to the bedside table by a mug of cold tea. His tears didn't make it taste any sweeter.

❄❄❄

_He tried hard to help me, you know he put me at ease_

_And he loved me so naughty, made me weak in the knees_

_Oh, I wish I had a river I could skate away on_

Fuck, but Harry was an angel. He absolutely was, in nearly every way. Dated a millionaire, but the guy dressed at charity shops where his money would go further and help create jobs for the disadvantaged. Volunteering at soup kitchens was another hobby which Louis eventually embraced, once he discovered that if he stood next to Harry in the serving line, he could pinch his arse surreptitiously but hard. Aaaaand that’s a fairly apt description of the state of Louis’ cock by the end of a marathon day of philanthropy with the curly-haired charmer.

It was proven fact. A real Gabriel in the streets, that Harry Styles, but he was Lucifer incarnate under the sheets. Harry could get his lover off twice in a row, with dexterous hands, mouth, thighs—hell, even other body parts, every so often—and still keep Louis randy enough to go another energetic round on top of him.

Fuck.

❄❄❄

_Well, I’m so hard to handle, I’m selfish, and I’m sad_

_Now I’ve gone and lost the best baby that I ever had_

_Oh, I wish I had a river I could skate away on_

What Louis had done, basically, was imply to one of their best friends that his intentions with Harry weren’t serious. It was a goddamned, bald-faced lie, and everyone seemed to know, excepting his emotionally wounded boyfriend. At first, Louis tried to play it off as a joke, but that’s what started Harry on his crying jag.

If Louis thought about things too hard, which he did, he was tempted to blame Harry, ludicrous as that was. It had been easy to take his affections for granted, as they were so easily given. Harry loved everyone dear to him with an overwhelming energy, and Louis had become almost cavalier about it. After all, Harry was a sure thing. Harry was his happy ending, written in glittery script if not stone.

Louis knew he needed to try everything in his considerable power to coax Harry back. He sent red roses and sunflowers, an odd combination that suited the young man, to Harry’s mum’s house in Cheshire, once Louis decided that’s where he’d flitted off to. Louis went so far as to preemptively order a platinum band set with a fuckton of black diamonds, just in case Harry returned with further doubt of Louis’ eventual aim.

It was a handful of ill-chosen words that had caused the rift, though, so he determined to belatedly woo Harry with them. Kinder words, that is. He wrote a “poem” that might’ve been penned by a schoolboy and posted the atrocity in picture form on Twitter. When that failed to garner a reaction, he sent sappy texts. They went unanswered too, as did his calls. Not long into the reconciliation effort, Louis resorted to voicemails.

“Call me, babe. Call me if—if you think you can ever—I mean, please... I love you. Just call.”

And not all of them achieved even that level of verbal clarity.

“Harry, love—” he began once, unable to get further before breaking down in dry sobs.

He rang Harry twice daily, at least. Stalked him on Whatsapp more frequently yet.

Louis’ phone didn’t ring, or buzz, or ding.

❄❄❄

_Oh, I wish I had a river so long, I would teach my feet to fly_

_I wish I had a river that I could skate away on_

_I made my baby say goodbye_

At least, it didn’t ring for a week.

And then his doorbell did instead. When Louis peered into the entry, he spotted a bedraggled Englishman stood with his head down—curls lank and limp, posture unsure. Louis couldn’t see his gorgeous mug, but the Chelsea boots on the man’s long feet were achingly familiar, and his black leather jeans were... They were just completely unsuitable for the occasion. Unfair, in point of fact.

The fashionable facade was ruined, however, as Harry lifted his pathetic gaze to Louis.

“Harry, what the fuck?” he shouted, “What the fuck? Come ‘ere,” and wrangled him into an excruciating embrace. “Are you home, I mean, to stay?”

The answer was a sniff and a nuzzle. And, “Not yet.”

Louis' arms stiffened involuntarily. How dare Harry torture him like that? God, it hurt. It hurt like a bitch, suffering rejection in real time, face to face. Or face to neck, in this case.

“What do you want, then? What can I do?”

Harry murmured into the hollow at the base of his throat. He always did that, bent himself over to become shorter than Louis, until he had cricks in his back that wouldn’t come out. “Take me to Pickwick,” is what he said.

❄❄❄

_It’s comin’ on Christmas, they’re cuttin’ down trees_

_They’re puttin’ up reindeer, singin’ songs of joy and peace_

_Oh, I wish I had a river I could skate away on_

Pickwick, though. Pickwick Gardens housed a modest indoor skating rink in Burbank. It was also the site of their ridiculous first date. Harry and Louis had taken more awkward tumbles on that ice than they had in the backseat of Louis’ Range Rover since then.

The ride there, in said sport utility vehicle, passed in a daze. Harry switched on the radio and didn’t initiate further conversation, while Louis concentrated on delivering them to their destiny alive. This was it; he might have a chance, if he could manage not to squander it.

Palms towering above the squat, concrete block building were incongruous with the frigid conditions inside it. Louis had forgotten how bourgeois the place really was. It followed that that was the appeal for Harry. They rented decrepit skates, and Harry knelt to help Louis lace up, like old times. It pained him in a location he couldn’t define, somewhere deeper than his heart.

Hobbling onto the rink, Harry joined their ungloved hands. Just then, the contact was more incredible than any throbbing orgasm Louis’d ever had. Their movements were uncoordinated, gaits disjointed and out of sync. After a few hesitant laps, it shocked no one when Harry overshot a turn and swayed, off balance. The resulting tug on Louis’ arm made them collide. It seemed that neither of them fought the inertia drawing them earthward, and they landed in an inglorious heap.

A startled squeak flew from Harry’s mouth, barely discernable over a Musak station playing Madonna’s "Like A Prayer."

“Oops. I still suck,” he pouted. “Sorry.”

“ _Like a child, you whisper softly to me,_ ” the 80s songstress crooned. “ _You’re in control, just like a child. It’s like a dream—no end and no beginning. You’re here with me, and it’s like a dream._ ”

It may have been like a dream, but it was also past time for a serious discussion, Louis reckoned. “Harry, I don’t want—”

“Shh,” the taller one quieted him, shifting so they were in full contact, with Louis above. “See sometimes... We make the wrong moves, and, like, pull each other down. And we get hurt, yeah? Then we just need to, you know, cushion each other’s fall, sort of, and—Ouch, sorry,” he offered, when Louis pinched the meat of his arm, shutting him up.

“No, Haz. Don’t you apologize, alright? This whole dog’s dinner is because of me.” Louis sighed raggedly and pillowed his face on Harry’s chest, for once.

“You never said so.” The statement reverberated in counterpoint to Harry’s heartbeat.

Louis was incredulous, looking up to find Harry’s expression stoic. “What?”

“I mean, you sent all those flowers, and that, but…”

A spray of ice shavings hit Louis in the cheek as someone with hockey skates sprinted by. He almost didn’t notice.

“Oh, _shit_ , I’m sorry. Okay? I am, I am so, just—”

The rest of his repentance was superfluous, apparently, because Harry snogged him then, intensely and with surprising finesse. Louis broke the kiss, both because it was too steamy for public consumption, and because there was a Pickwick Gardens employee gliding over to offer assistance.

They made it upright with some difficulty, as Madonna continued to sing about life being a mystery and everyone needing to stand alone.

But that wasn’t true, as Louis had ascertained the hard way. He had no chance of staying on his feet, be they in figure skates or dress loafers or black Vans, unless Harry was there to steady him. Or knock him over, whichever. Both were fine, really. Following the banks of that frozen river of the future, they’d skate onwards. Together.


End file.
